In U.K., a Brexit Spat Reveals Deep Divisions

LONDON — The letter is as British as it gets: polite, polished and understated.

Written by a senior Conservative Party lawmaker, Christopher Heaton-Harris, and sent to British universities, it asked officials to reveal the names of professors involved in teaching students about Europe, including Britain’s decision last year to leave the European Union, a process known as Brexit.

“Furthermore,” the missive read, “if I could be provided with a copy of the syllabus and links to the online lectures which relate to this area I would be much obliged.”

Despite its apparently mild tone, the letter has provoked a national debate on freedom of speech in universities and whether the country is being subjected to political censorship in a British version of McCarthyism.

The uproar increased on Thursday after The Daily Mail, a popular tabloid that has vociferously supported Brexit and which carries an anti-immigrant slant, published a front-page article citing instances in which it said university professors had encouraged students to oppose a Brexit. On another page, more than a dozen headshots of academic leaders were assembled around a headline that read: “Just why is every new Oxbridge head a leftie?” (“Oxbridge” is shorthand for the two leading universities in Britain: Oxford and Cambridge.)

While the letter itself is the work of a single politician, the backlash underscores the toxic climate and the searing divisions that dominate Britain more than a year after its referendum on Brexit.

There is deep uncertainty and little consensus over what Britain’s future should look like. Negotiations with the European Union over divorce terms have all but stalled. Even the ruling Conservative Party, which called for the referendum in the first place, is divided over what kind of a break it wants. Resentment against elites remains as acerbic as ever.

“It’s got that smell of something McCarthyite, and people are in a paranoid frame of mind,” Peter York, a prominent commentator, said of the letter. “So it doesn’t take much.” Just like the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between supporters and opponents of President Trump in the United States, Britain is facing a “tremendously emotive” moment, he said in an interview.

Since the letter was made public, a British minister who oversees universities, Jo Johnson, has defended Mr. Heaton-Harris, though only halfheartedly, saying he was simply doing research for a book. Still, Mr. Johnson said, “a letter that could have been misinterpreted should probably not have been sent this way.”

Mr. Heaton-Harris wrote on Twitter that he “believes in free speech and in having an open and vigorous debate on Brexit.” He could not immediately be reached for comment.

David Green, the vice chancellor of University of Worcester who was among those receiving Mr. Heaton-Harris’s letter, said that he had never seen anything like it in his nearly four decades in academia. “It’s a very British McCarthyism,” he said by telephone.

The lawmaker “wants to publish the names of people he thinks are allegedly polluting the minds of young people,” Mr. Green said of Mr. Heaton-Harris, adding that the letter did not refer to any research or book. “It is a dangerous moment for Britain. It is very clear that there are people in important positions who have a disregard for the principles of democracy.”

Christopher Patten, a former Conservative chairman who is now chancellor at the University of Oxford, described the letter as an “extraordinary example of outrageous and foolish behavior, offensive and idiotic Leninism.”

Typically, in the Brexit debate, those in the “leave” camp are described as populist and anti-immigrant, while the “remain” camp is often disparaged as elitist — educated, professional, mainstream media, academics and others — and called things like traitors or “enemies of the people.”

Just this week, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a paleo-Conservative lawmaker known for his euroskeptic views, labeled Mark J. Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, an “enemy of Brexit.”

Mr. Heaton-Harris writes on his website about his support of Brexit as defending the “will of the people.”

The views of such Brexit supporters are often aired by The Daily Mail, which, in its latest issue, quoted a student at Durham University in northeastern England who had voted “leave.” There was “a worrying ‘group think’ atmosphere hanging over our universities,” the student was quoted as saying. “Too many young people who voted ‘leave’ feel intimidated or afraid to speak up because of this heavy atmosphere of institutional bias.”

In another “troubling” case cited by the newspaper, a lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire put a poster on her office door calling for a march to ‘‘stop Brexit.’’

At the University of Cambridge, the tabloid reported, a graduation dinner was “used” to “warn students about Brexit.” At the University of Plymouth, students campaigning for “leave” votes were reportedly barred “from holding events on campus because they were not ‘fair and unbiased.’ ”

The Daily Mail goes on to cite a YouGov survey of academics in Britain that showed eight in 10 voted for Britain to stay in the European Union, which sends millions of dollars to British universities every year. Oxford, for example, receives about nearly $90 million in research funds from Brussels each year.

Mr. Green, of the University of Worcester, says there is a clear difference between academics expressing an opinion and their pushing that opinion onto students. “In universities, we teach students to think independently,” he said.

Supporters of Mr. Heaton-Harris contend that the extent of the backlash against his letter was unfair, and they questioned the degree to which universities, most of them liberal, are open-minded and receptive to different views.

“There is an illiberal liberalism among universities in the sense that ‘we are right’ and ‘we are morally superior,’ ” said David Goodhart, author of “The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics.” There is a “massive liberal bias” against Brexit in universities, he said, and “they have the kind of economic, political and cultural clout of enormously rich organizations through which millions of young people go.”

In the end, wrote Stephen Glover, a Daily Mail columnist and an alumnus of Oxford, “The patronizing, elitist hysteria of universities over being asked about Brexit will harden the views of millions who voted for it.

“It was partly as a revolt against such patronizing attitudes that so many less privileged Britons voted Brexit.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Cries of ‘McCarthyism’ As a Spat Over Brexit Shows Deep Divisions. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe